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Initial I: God the Father Blessing

Creator

Italian Illuminator · 1433–1484

Francesco di Antonio del Chierico, an illuminator and goldsmith, was one of the most prolific manuscript painters of the fifteenth century in Florence. He worked for Cosimo, Piero and Lorenzo de Medici as well as Federigo da Montefeltro. He was also an associate of the renowned bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci, who helped him acquire patrons beyond Italy, such as Ferdinand I of Naples, Louis XI o

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Date: early 1460s
Medium: Tempera and gold
Culture: Italian
Department: Manuscripts
Institution: Getty Museum

The sensitively drawn face and hands of God the Father stand out in this otherwise brightly colored illumination. These parts are probably not unfinished, but rather may be one of the artist's many experiments in using tinted drawing as part of his illumination. This depiction of God the Father Blessing, showing him reaching out of the foliate initial, is unusual for a choir book, but it illustrates the office for the Monday after Easter, which makes frequent reference to God the Father. The leaf originally came from an antiphonal that belonged with a set of seventeen choir books that were made for the Augustinian abbey (the Badia) at Fiesole near Florence under the patronage of Cosimo de' Medici.

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